


Mother's Dinner

by Sophonisba



Series: Zophonisbeion [12]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Discussion of organ meats, Gen, and perhaps of things that do not belong in meatloaf, things that some people may feel do not belong at the dinner table
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-22
Updated: 2011-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-22 22:44:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophonisba/pseuds/Sophonisba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With cultural interchange, there will be disjunction. Sometimes at mealtimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother's Dinner

"I still think," Teyla said as AR-1 walked down the hall to the mess, "it would have been wiser to trade for the livers. You have the cold storage..."

"Yes," Ford pointed out, "but it's liver. Who wants to eat liver?"

"I am quite fond of liver," Teyla said. "It is rich and filling."

"So am I," Carson Beckett said, emerging from a transporter and falling into step with them. "My mum used to make it for dinner."

"So did mine," Rodney McKay said, going on to happily if raggedly chorus with Carson "Liver and onions...."

"My mom made chicken and rice," Sheppard contributed. "Ten thousand recipes for chicken and rice."

"Some of them were probably the same as my mom's," Rodney said. "Did she do the casserole thing?"

"Oh, and cabbage," Carson went on. "My mum had this thing she did with cabbage and some greens and a bit of sausage..."

"Grandma has a chicken tortilla casserole with green peppers and olives," Ford added. "I think every lady in the Women's Circle wants to know her secret. And then there's her meatloaf..."

"Meatloaf night tonight, sir," Sergeant Stackhouse said at the end of the line.

"Oh, hey," Rodney said happily.

"I love meatloaf," Ford agreed, "even if nobody else's is quite as good as Grandma's meatloaf."

"My mother makes the best meatloaf I've ever had," Stackhouse said, "but everyone makes it a little differently, so I've never had any that someone made quite like Ma." He sniffed appreciatively. "This smells pretty close, even if it's that whatever-it-was Sergeant Bates's team brought in, sir."

The line moved forward.

People were served slices of meatloaf or helpings of some dish of noodles and unidentifiable vegetable matter.

"Hey, be careful with the citrus noodles!" Rodney said sharply, and Teyla's attention was caught until a plate was handed to her with a slice of the... meatloaf.

Numbly, she followed the rest of AR-1 and Carson to a nearby table where Elizabeth Weir was sitting by herself.

"I didn't actually have the kind of meatloaf you'd call meatloaf at home when I was growing up," Sheppard was saying after they'd made their excuses and Elizabeth professed herself delighted to have company at dinner. "Then I left home and they served it everywhere."

Elizabeth nodded. "We had Salisbury steak, but not meatloaf. I was happy to have it at school, because it was one more thing that, well, that seemed normal."

Rodney snorted, although it might have been a side-effect of a tremendous first bite.

"This is made of... " Teyla said tentatively, looking at the slice of meatloaf in front of her. Behind them, several of the Athosians had apparently stopped in front of the servers with similar expressions on their faces.

"Beef, bread, eggs, sauces, spices," Ford shrugged. "I used to help Grandma make it."

Rodney swallowed. "This is made of those goat-things Bates's team found instead of beef, but the principle's the same."

"The locals called them sheep," Private Franklin called from the next table over, "but they were clearly goat-things."

"It is just," Teyla explained, lips beginning to quirk, "that it looks very much like birth-loaf."

Jinto and Wex, two tables over, began to laugh. So, less noisily, did most of the Athosians in the dinner line, thankfully beginning to make their choices and move again.

"Birth-loaf?" Elizabeth asked, cutting a slice of her meatloaf.

"The family prepares it right away, while you are still tired from your labor and perhaps feeding the newborn," Teyla explained, "and then you eat your nourishing birth-loaf, to help you regain your strength."

Most of her table-companions were nodding and eating. Sheppard was trying to get a stubborn plastic packet of mustard open, and Carson said thoughtfully, "I suppose the bread would provide the quick fix and the meat more long-term nourishment, as the case might be."

Teyla nodded, cutting off a piece of meatloaf. "And now that it is done with its task of feeding the unborn, you eat it so that that of you you put into it will not be lost." She popped the morself in and chewed thoughtfully.

Most of the other people at the table, on the other hand, were one by one setting their utensils back on the table as they fixed her with appalled looks. Sheppard, after a quick glance, made great show of busying himself with applying mustard to his steamed vegetables.

Rodney went on shoveling in meatloaf. "That makes sense," he said in between bites, "although I bet it'd taste more like liver than normal beef meatloaf does. Or this."

Teyla tilted her head, considering, and helped herself to a slice of Ford's canned pear.


End file.
